Contact: Nanette Perez

Project Coordinator, OIF

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For Immediate Release

May 16, 2006

Kembrew McLeod receives Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award

CHICAGO - Kembrew McLeod has been chosen as the winner of the Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award, presented by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) of the American Library Association (ALA). McLeod was selected for his book "Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity" (Doubleday, Random House, 2005).

The award is named for the late Idaho University librarian Eli M. Oboler, a renowned "champion of intellectual freedom who demanded the dismantling of all barriers to freedom of expression." The Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) presents the award every two years for the best published book.

"McLeod captures the growing switch from a balanced compromise between the creator's rights and public access," said Committee Chair Fred Stielow. "In its place, the author wittily exposes a stifling shift of copyright law into an instrument of commercial interests."

The committee also recognized the author's own commitment by making his text available as an Open Source publication at http://www.kembrew.com/books/.

McLeod is a media studies scholar at the University of Iowa. Author of "Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership and Intellectual Property Law" (Lang, 2001), he is also the independent filmmaker behind "Money For Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music" (2000)-a documentary that received the Rosa Luxemburg Award for Social Consciousness.

Formal presentation will be at the IFRT Awards Reception on Saturday, June 24, at the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.